I’m not sure what I expected coming back to St. Mary’s. It’s kind of amazing how everything can be the same around me when I feel so different on the inside. It was all kind of shocking at first, like jumping into the ocean all at once and having the air squeezed out of you by the cold. But that wears off, and I’m a little bit afraid I could slip back to where I was before. Some things are different. Having G here is proof of that. Everyone’s intrigued by how she broke her leg and came to be at St. Mary’s. I’ve heard rumors that she’s a mobster’s daughter and part of the witness protection program, or that she’s the heiress to a Middle Eastern oil fortune. Alex loves her. I asked him if it was because they’re both gay, and he just laughed at me and said G was tuff. He spelled it out like that too. He said I should have my own support group and I could call it AMFAG—all my friends are gay.
Mom even bought me a car so that G wouldn’t have to hobble back and forth to school. It’s a used Ford Focus—nothing fancy—but it’s a car and it’s all mine. And of course some of the interest in her has rubbed off on me. Everyone speculates about whether we’re “together” even though we’ve never said or indicated anything that would make it seem like we are.
Even Margaret and some of the other hot girls have started saying hi to me. They say “Hi, Andrew,” even though I have no idea how they know my name because I’m pretty sure I never told them. A couple weeks after I got back Jennifer Barnes, in my history class, actually asked me to go to the movies. It wasn’t really a big deal. There wasn’t that much time to talk since it was a movie. We ate popcorn and made fun of the corny ads and quiz games that flash on the screen before the movie starts. Afterwards, when I dropped her off at her house, she sat in the car for a while after unbuckling her seatbelt, like she was expecting something. So I kissed her, just quickly, and told her I’d call her again sometime. But I haven’t called. When I left her house that night I went home hoping G would be up and we could talk, but the lights were out in the guest room. I thought about opening the door to see if she would wake up. Instead I sat up for a while and thought about Emily and the things about being with her that made me really truly happy. Which of course makes me think about where I am now. It’s not exactly the opposite of happy, but it’s kind of like eating plain old white bread after you’ve had Alien Garlic Bread. You know you’re missing something.
About a week after I went out with Jennifer, G asked me about it on the way to school.
“You going to call that girl again?”
“Who?”
“Whatsherface from history. What, you have so many dates these days you can’t keep track?”
I snorted. “Nah, I don’t think so.”
“Not really.”
G paused for a minute. “Still thinking about Emily?”
“Maybe,” I admitted. “You probably think I’m a total idiot.”
G shook her head. “No, not at all. I think Emily’s lucky to have met someone like you who sees the best in her.”
“Really? After everything that happened, that’s what you think?”
“I think you care about her a lot.” She paused. “And I think she cares about you too. I think she’s got kind of a messed-up way of showing it sometimes.”
“So you don’t think she was just using me to get back at Lyle anymore?”
“Maybe at first. But I think—no, I know she ended up caring about you a lot. Honestly, I think it ended up freaking her out a little.”
“Yeah, well, not like it matters now. I’m probably never going to see her again.”
G shrugged. “You never know. The universe works in mysterious ways sometimes.”
I raised my eyebrows at her. “Now you sound like Emily.”
G laughed. “Yeah, don’t ever tell her I said that.”